John Lloyd Cruz and Piolo Pascual are suddenly taking on more serious acting roles, like in Honor Thy Father and On the Job. Now, Philippine cinema’s most bankable stars are joining Lav Diaz, the ideological father of new Philippine cinema, for Hele sa Hiwagang Hapis.
The film is a mystery that marries literature (including the missing chapters of Jose Rizal’s El Filibusterismo), mythology (tikbalangs or half-man half-horse creatures), and history (Ka Oryang’s 30-day search for the lost body of her husband Andres Bonifacio).
The director has released the trailer of the film on his Facebook page. The trailer is captioned:
Andrés Bonifacio y de Castro is considered to be one of the most influential proponents in the struggle against Spanish colonial rule in the Philippines during the late nineteenth century. Today, he is still celebrated as the father of the Philippine Revolution. Director Lav Diaz examines this myth and undertakes another expedition into the eventful history of his native land. The film’s various loosely interwoven narrative threads are held together by an exploration of the role of the individual in history and their involvement in political and social developments. Bonifacio’s widow is searching for her husband’s missing dead body; as she and her followers stumble deeper into the jungle, they become entangled in the dense thicket of their own guilt and responsibility. The Spanish governor tries to play off the various rebel factions and their utopian visions against each other. At the same time, a badly wounded companion of Bonifacio reflects upon the victims a revolution inevitably creates. The film’s high-contrast black-and-white photography makes the journey into the past abstract. Mythology, facts and a vibrant sense of history merge.
Watch the trailer below:
Diaz is notorious for the length of his works, averaging six to nine hours. His longest was 2004’s Ebolusyon ng Isang Pamilyang Pilipino,which spanned almost 10 hours. But his works have have been recognized in the Venice Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, and the New York Film Festival. His film Norte, Hangganan ng Kasaysayan was screened at the Un Certain Regard section of 2013 Cannes Film Festival and was selected as the Philippines’ entry to the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 87th Academy Awards.
Hele runs for 482 minutes (eight hours and two minutes). The film is also nominated for the Golden Bear, the highest prize of the Berlin International Film Festival, one of the Big Three, along with Venice and Cannes. The film will compete against films starring Emma Thompson, Scarlett Johansson, Kirsten Dunst, and Jude Law. The jury president is actress Meryl Streep.
However, the team needs an additional P1.2 million for airfare, accommodation, German translation and subtitling, DCP with hardcoded German subtitles and promotional materials.
There is no release date of the film in the Philippines.
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